Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

And he, and Yosper, and Leota, and everyone else—what were they doing, if not devoting all their strength to being a part of their particular swarm? Causes and nations moved where chance pushed them—even, sometimes, into a war of mutual suicide, when both sides knew in advance that neither winner nor loser could gain.

Exactly like locusts—

Someone tapped at his door.

Hake sat up. “Yes?” he called.

It opened on the child who had brought his dinner, looking fearful. In barbarous English he said, “Sir, I have brought you tea, if God wills it.”

Hake took the tray, puzzled. “It’s all right,” he said kindly, but the boy’s fright did not diminish. He turned and bolted. Hake sat down and put the tea on the night table, his train of thought shattered. Not that it mattered. None of it was really relevant to the present problem, which was pure survival, his own and Leota’s.

Something rolled across the floor as he shook the napkin open. When he retrieved it, it was a double golden finger-ring.

There was no note, no word of any kind, but he didn’t need one. On this yacht at this time it was not likely that there was more than one person with the double-ring of an American group marriage. So Alys was aboard.

“Wake up now, Mr. Hake. There is to be a briefing.”

Hake staggered to the door and opened it on Mario, looking sleepy but oddly pleased with himself. “Now? It isn’t even five a.m.!”

“Not just at this minute, no, but soon. Immediately after the sheik’s morning devotions. However,” he smirked, “there is an interesting development which I think you will wish to see.”

Hake groggily pulled on his shoes. “What is it?”

“Hurry, Mr. Hake. See for yourself.” The youth led the way back as they had come, to the aft deck. It was just sunrise, and the slanting light laid long shadows across the city of A1 Halwani, and on the launch that was whining toward them. “They radioed that they were bringing someone,” Mario said over Hake’s shoulder. “There, do you see? She is sitting by herself, just inside the canopy.”

“Leota!”

“Yes, Mr. Hake, your dear friend, for whom you risked so much. So now you will be together again—or, at any rate, not more than a few hundred feet apart. I don’t suppose Sheik Hassabou will invite you to his harem.”

“How did you catch her?”

Mario frowned. “It was not difficult at the end,” he said. “She was simply strolling down the esplanade by herself. The boatmen recognized her, and she offered no resistance.”

Hake leaned over the rail to watch, as the launch came up to the float. A woman in veil and headdress was waiting; it was only from her wrinkled and age-spotted hands that Hake could tell she was ancient. As Leota came aboard she shrank from the old woman, who angrily thrust her inside.

“Mario— Mario, I want to talk to her. Just for a minute.”

“Why, Mr. Hake! What a ridiculous request! Of course that is impossible—and now,” the youth said merrily, “if you do not come quickly you will miss your breakfast.” The confused baying from across the water was the muezzins’ calling for five-o’clock prayers. Down on the landing stage the boatmen were dropping to their knees, and on deck those of higher status were spreading their prayer rugs, checking the built-in magnetic compass for proper orientation, before doing the same.

Hake followed Mario to the dining salon. He did not eat, did not join in the conversation, accepted only coffee. His mind was full of quick plans and instant dismissals, and when the Team members got up for their briefing he trailed after them silently. Only when they passed an arms locker, with one of the armed boatmen standing silent before it, did he hesitate. For just a second. He could overpower the guard. Seize a couple of the rapid-fire carbines and a dozen clips of cartridges. Shoot up Yosper, Tiger, the crewmen and everyone else. Find the harem. Arm Leota. Make a run for the launch.

And what were the chances of getting away with it? At the most hopeful estimate, one in a million? Something in Hake’s upbringing had taught him to risk anything to save a woman from debauchery… but did Leota share his view?

A crewman with an actual scimitar pulled back a gold cloth curtain, and they were in the sheik’s private salon.

If opulence had been missing below decks, it was all concentrated here. Iced fruits in crystal bowls, tiny coffee cups and squares of sweetmeats on hammered silver trays; chests of glazed tile, covered with rugs that had not been woven to rest on any floor. Even the gold cloth drapes were not cloth at all; as the yacht moved, the way they swung showed that they were actual gold.

The sheik was already present, sitting above the others in a cushioned chair. He was older than Hake had remembered, and better looking: olive skin and nose like a bird of prey, the eyes brilliant within their circle of black kohl. Next to him, half a foot lower down, Curmudgeon was sitting erect and impatient. The meeting was short. There was little discussion and, to Hake’s surprise, not even any recrimination. Even Jessie Tunman confined herself to glaring poisonously at him from time to time. Curmudgeon spelled out the plan, pausing to defer to the sheik every time Hassabou stirred or cleared his throat, and it was all over in fifteen minutes.

Hake’s part was simple. He was to report to the control shack with his fake ID and the story that he had been assigned as a sweeper. It would be too late for them to bother checking up at night, even if they became suspicious, and by the time the personnel office opened in the morning it would be all over. Hake would remain in the tower at sunrise—there was some danger there, Curmudgeon noted grudgingly, but he would simply have to take his chances. Yosper, his boys and others would come to the tower in scuba gear, and he would let them in. They would be armed with sleep gas, missile weapons and canisters of fungus spores. The sleep gas was to knock out the people in the control shack when they came to it through the tunnel under the bay. The guns were in case the sleep gas didn’t work. The fungus was to destroy the sunflowers. Another party was to take out the guard shack on the dunes, and when all was secure they would blow up control shack and tower—having first photographed everything and taken off any interesting-looking equipment. The yacht would pick them all up, and then—

No one said anything about “then” as far as Hake was concerned. It was as if his life had been programmed to stop when the tower was destroyed.

Ten minutes after he was back in his cabin the twelve-year-old, trembling, brought him an unordered bottle of mineral water. “I will be back in half an hour,” he whispered, and disappeared; and when Hake picked up the napkin, he found a tiny cassette recorder, with a tape in place.

Leota!

But it was Alys’s voice that came to him from the tape. “Keep the volume down!” it ordered at once. Then, “Horny, Leota came aboard wired. God knows how long it will be before they find the radio, so don’t waste time. Tape all the information you can, put the recorder under your pillow and go for a walk. Jumblatt will get it when he cleans up your room. Don’t talk to him. Don’t try to see either one of us.” Then, incredibly, a giggle. “Isn’t this fun!”

An hour later Hake was back in the lounge, looking as much like a loyal member of the Team as he could. That involved some sacrifice. Yosper was holding court, explaining to Jessie Tunman that men were better than angels (“The Lord never picked no angel for our Redeemer, did he?”), offering to bet Mario and Carlos that they could not find any reference to the Trinity anywhere in the Bible, informing Dieter that, whatever he’d seen in medieval religious paintings to the contrary notwithstanding, neither he nor Albrecht Diirer nor anybody else knew what the face of Jesus looked like: “It’s right in the Bible, boy! His face was like unto the face of the Sun! You see any blue eyes and scraggly blond beard on the face of the SunV’ Having settled that, he looked around for someone else to instruct, but Hake had had enough. He got up and joined Tigrito at the pool table. They were all up, all their glands flowing, ready for adventure, like kids on the way to Disneyland; even Jessie Tunman was flushing and giggling like a teenager. Hake was up in a different way. He knew, without question, that the next few hours were going to make a change in his life, and part of him was terrified. When at last he became aware of stirrings outside he dropped his cue and ran to peer over the railing.